Internet-based sci-fi series Electric City to debut in India on Thursday on BiGFLIX

Is there an audience in India for a show that debuts on the Web? Anil Ambani's Reliance Entertainment will soon find out.

Electric City , an internet-based animated science-fiction series created by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks, will make its debut in India on Thursday on BiGFLIX, Reliance's online movie-on-demand service.

The series marks a major departure for BiGFLIX, as it has been showing mostly Indian movies and TV shows since morphing into an online video service last year. This is new territory for the internet too (the show opened globally on Yahoo on Tuesday) because online blockbusters have so far largely been short clips that have gone viral.

Manish Agarwal, CEO, Reliance Entertainment Digital, believes that Indians are more than ready for quality animation content. "It would appeal to people who are avid fans of world cinema and like sci-fi fiction."

BiGFLIX, says Agarwal, is targeting early adopters and a niche audience that has access to high-speed internet connection. "This audience is highly interested in Hollywood. "

The 90 minute, 20-episode series, produced by Reliance and Hanks' Playtone, is set in a future world putting itself back together after catastrophic events. The New York Times has said the show has the look and feel of something on Cartoon Network on prime time.

Reliance is also betting on Electric City winning over viewers through mobile phones.

Hanks has been quoted as saying: "They (Reliance) came to us and said, 'Look, in India alone, there are 700 million people who speak English, who are very much used to looking at things that last about three minutes on their phone. What they haven't seen so far is a true story that they stay up with.'"

BiGFLIX app is available on Apple and Android devices while an Electric City app on gaming and other digital experience will be unveiled in three days. Electric City will be shown as three-minute 'webisodes', which Agarwal says is the ideal duration for a content to be consumed on mobile phones.

He says consumers would start watching movies on mobile also as soon as data pricing and speeds improve. "Full movie consumption would be led by tablets outside homes. "

Hanks lends his voice to Cleveland Carr, a mysterious operative. It also features the voices of Jeanne Tripplehorn (Big Love ) and Holland Taylor ( Two and a Half Men), among others.

Hanks has shaped the world of Electric City from his memories of past sci-fi culture and dark imagination of events to come.

Reviews of Electric City so far have been mixed. The NYT says the sort-of-action comics, sort-of-spy-thriller world of Electric City is more distracting than thought-provoking. Other reviewers like Jesse Carp of TV Blend says the show is on his must-see list for its noirish undertones and old-school animation.